First Week: Physical Withdrawals

• Irritability
• Sweating
• Insomnia
• Nervous
• Hunger

Week 2-12

• Impatience
• Hunger
• Difficulty Focusing
• Coughing: Why coughing?  When you smoke you damage the lining of the lungs.  Part of this lining is composed of little hair like projections protruding out from the cells that line the lungs. These cilia normally move mucous along out of the smaller airways.  The mucous is a combination of body secretions and debris that enters the lung during the breathing process. The mucous acts to trap and debris.  If the debris is irritating, then more mucous is formed.  The cilia then move the mucous/debris out of the airways for expulsion.  Smokers have cilia that are dysfunctional, therefore the mucous just sits and plugs the lower and smaller airways.  Two things occur here: 1) More chance to develop infection such as pneumonia 2) Carcinogen debris just sits in one place exposing the cells below to it's cancer causing effects. When a smoker quits smoking, the cilia start to regenerate, and all the mucous build up starts to move again.  This presents the person with irritation that results in coughing and the more forceful clearing of all the debris that just wasn't moving while they were smoking.

  Home